Maegan Gwaltney is a Chicago writer and storyteller. Her essays have appeared in The Los Angeles Review of Books and The Manifest-Station. She has told stories at live lit venues all around Chicago, including The Moth and 2nd Story. She's currently working on a memoir about grieving, not only the people we lose, but the people we thought we'd become. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram at @MaeG765.
Before my father killed her, my mother spent her evenings telling me the story of how she came to America. Every night, the way she started was with something new.